In Brandon Hall Group’s Employment Value Proposition Study, 71% of organizations indicated that opportunities for development are the most critical factor – particularly for top talent and Millennial leaders – in deciding to join or stay with an organization.
Conversely, less than 21% of employees say they are very satisfied with the level of opportunity for development offered by their organizations. More alarming, 44% of all employees advise that their managers do not usually create any sort of personalized learning and development plans.
Organizations will be hard-pressed to attract or retain talent if they are not serious about investing in their perpetual development. In fact, 23% of organizations report current turnover rates that are higher than competitors and industry averages, and in many cases, already becoming a performance issues for the business.
Unless organizations step up to an “all in” position on employee development and take a fresh and rigorous approach to career management, they can expect these numbers to look even more troubling in the very near future. The Millennials are flooding our workforces and will do so even more over the next 10 years, and they have told us in no uncertain terms that their number one reason for identifying an employer as one of choice is that organization’s commitment to their personal development and career planning.
A strategic design to employee development and career planning is just the start. To make the process efficient, effective, and truly usable, it needs to be accessible by employees. That means a technology platform of sorts. Again – we have a not-so-good news story: less than 10% of organizations indicated that their career planning and development tools were valued by employees and widely used. In fact, 44% admitted that their career planning tools were plain abysmal or avoided by employees because they were not of any value.
High-performing organizations are kicking up talent strategies to full tilt, and those strategies are focused on the career planning for the workforce in fresh new ways:
- Targeting key talent segments such as the Millennials
- Providing self-help career planning tools
- Reshaping career planning in alignment with today’s open talent economy
Key Talent Segments
The best organizations outperform their peers on talent attraction and retention because they focus their career planning strategy on key talent segments. Key talent segments are those that add disproportionate value to achievement of your business goals. Today, I’d be hard-pressed to find an organization with a list of key talent segments that excludes Millennials. Millennials’ number one priority for joining and staying with an organization is targeted development and growth – a true investment in their career growth.
Self-Help Career Planning Tools
Millennials take charge of developing their own careers. They need ready access to career advisory resources. The best resources are networking tools, career interest assessments, online career maps, and senior level mentors and advisors with experiences to share.
Open Talent Economy
The onset of our information and technology economy brings forth an open talent economy. An open talent economy is a collaborative, technology-driven approach to getting work done that relies on a variety of workers – full-time employees, freelancers, temporary workers, seasonal help, volunteers, et al – who bid on high-value work. The open talent economy means new career planning and development tools that allow Millennials and other employees who are on point for their own careers to be collaborative via social tools and mobile devices. It means organizations enable workers to build talent networks that attract different types of workers with different skill sets. It requires organizations to develop employer brands that are recognized by workers as investors in career growth.
Are You Ready?
How ready and willing is your organization to step up to a new career planning formula? What talent processes need to be in place? What social tools and technology might you need to amplify workers’ ability to leverage their skills and experiences in high value across all parts of your business? Do we have mentors up with developing employees to help them grow in their career aspirations and ensure their contributions make a difference to the business?
Until next time….
—Laci Loew
VP and Principal Analyst, Talent Management
Brandon Hall Group
@laciloew
